Thursday, April 19, 2007

The Flower Basket Shawl is now blocked and wrapped in acid free tissue paper until needed. As you can see. It's pretty to look at but best worn at an angle to the body so that the point does not end up in an unfortunate location (as it does in the photo on me). Golly I need to dye my hair something fierce! It just so happens that the new Knit Picks catalogue came today and has the theme of "Lace". In addition to talking about lace knitting charts, dyeing etc. they also have several PDF instructions. One for making a shawl frame and the other for instructions on various methods of blocking . Check it out! Still knitting the Wedding Ring Shawl border. Not enough to really post yet. I found a dropped stitch so I just picked it up with spare yarn and did the fast and dirty fix. No picking back this time. I'd rather eat dirt than pick back over a thousand stitches for a row. I don't get as nice a stitch definition as missalicefaye since the yarn is so darned hairy. Still, it's pretty. Not perfect, but my niece Jessie won't care. It's really the Heere Be Dragone Shawl she wants but I don't know if that will be next or not. Maybe another simple lace to replace FBS. Time to swatch!

12 comments:

It is lovely! I thank you for the links to the blocking methods. I don't know about a gigantic frame--for me, that is. I am not quite to the phase where I need blocking of a lot of shawls or a rectangular shawl. I think the frame will definitely serve you well because you make so many other lovely and sometimes large shawls. If you make one, I would love to see it.

I really like this shawl too. Like Mountain Pines, it's relatively durable. Something the gossamer weight shawls might not be. WRS is just one of those shawls that goes on and on and on but eventually I'll get it done. Have a great time with the new kitty!

So far, all my shawls have been blocked on the carpet. Not great as the dogs have to be prevented from getting into that room until they dry. I'm not sure about the Knit Picks frame yet. I've got to give it more thought. Not having a frame has never stopped me from making the shawls anyway :-) I bet as you continue to knit that this may come up eventually for you. I'll let you know what I figure out!

I'm thinking I will need a frame just to block the WRS on. I'm just not sure if it will the the one from Knit Picks. The yarn for WRS does have a nice halo but it's still only a single strand, easily destroyed if picked back. Pretty as it is, I'm not sure I'll use the same yarn for the next one. If I make a frame, you will see it here!

Yes, the Koigu maintained it's color beautifully and the drape is really nice. Not so sharp at the points because I didn't want to tension it any tighter, but then it's not really necessary to go to that extream. I have not shown the shawl to any of my friends for fear they will want it for themselves.LOL It's a really nice yarn to knit with. I now understand why some people go so crazy of Koigu. I still have 2 full balls and a partial ball left. Hmmmmm.

I have been looking at different diameters of PVC pipe at Home Depot and on the Web. You can make a simple square frame using PVC and corner joins but I wonder if it would be hard to get the shawl on the frame using the blocking thread. I wonder if it would slide on tube or stay put. The one with the pins in the wood look like they might keep their positions better. Of course, PVC pipe is really really cheap. I'd have to bring a hack-saw to Home Depot because the PVC is sold in lengths too long to fit into my Honda Civic and they don't cut it for you at my store. I've still got some time to decide.

I'm not all that fast when you consider most all of these shawls were started in 2006! It is a pretty shawl. It's nicer than what I'm able to photograph because the Koigu has such lovely subtle colors.

As for my hair, I'd settle for pain old brown/black. I once used a purple henna wash on my hair in my youth but it was not appreciated by my work place :-)